To many, the name Dick Ierardi conjures memories of the golden age of softball, but Ierardi's athletic career was notable for far more. Ierardi, who died this week at 78, was a link to many golden-age athletic moments.

Ierardi died 60 years nearly to the day since the Wilby High boys basketball team won a state championship. Ierardi was the irreplaceable sixth man on that famed team coached by John McKenna.

Ierardi, an All-City player on a team that included such stars as Dick Clary, John Faraci and Carl Niesobecki, would have been famous enough if his greatest athletic accomplishment was being part of that 1953 state championship team, which also made it to the semifinals of the New England tournament.

But Ierardi had much more to offer.

He went on to play baseball at Quinnipiac. Ierardi batted .351 in 1956 to set the school record for the highest single-season batting average. That record lasted only one year, however. Some guy named Frank "Porky" Vieira came along the next season and batted .424, which remains the best average ever at the school.

Ierardi is remembered as a coach, too. He began as an assistant with McKenna at Wilby, and later joined the state vocational education system. He coached at Wolcott Tech and then came to Kaynor, where in 1967-68 he led the Panthers to their first state tournament appearance in basketball.

That began a successful run

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for the Panthers in the old Mattatuck Conference. Ierardi was a coach, teacher and administrator, and for two years he was even an ambassador when he was an educational liaison to establish vo-tech educational programs in Saudi Arabia.

But even that wasn't enough for Ierardi. There was, of course, softball.

He was, first, a brilliant second baseman for the fast-pitch Titans, the Golden Villa and later the Waterbury Bombers. The team featured softball icons like Ike Icovone, Joe Burns, Tony Marinaro and Ierardi.

And even then Ierardi wasn't finished. His greatest days were still ahead after he switched to modified. Ierardi moved to the mound and was the stalwart pitcher for the juggernaut teams of Town and Country Cleaners and Allyn's Cleaners.

What followed were state and New England championships, and even a third-place finish in the national championship tournament. He was inducted into the Connecticut Softball Hall of Fame in 1992.

Dick Ierardi, you see, leaves us as one of the greatest sports figures the city has ever seen. He simply excelled at everything he did.

"He was the ultimate competitor," said Rich Hamel, who sponsored the great Town and Country and Allyn's teams, and who is also a softball Hall of Fame member. "He was the toughest competitor I have ever been around."

The best story to illustrate that comes from Dick Kulmann, who was a coach at Kaynor when Ierardi was athletic director and who was also Ierardi's catcher on those championship softball teams.

"I think it was 1978, and we were playing in the New England championship tournament," Kulmann said. "He happened to be the oldest player on our team, and the opposing players were getting on his case. They were calling him Father Time to try to get in his head. Dick never responded. He never said a word. All he did was beat them to win the championship.

"But after the game when he got the game ball in his hand, he took that ball and showed it to them, and said, 'Here's your (colorful adjective deleted) Father Time.'"

Ierardi truly did it all. He coached soccer, basketball and baseball at Kaynor Tech, was an administrator there, later a principal at Goodwin Tech and a mentor to many, like Kulmann and Marty Sparano, who played for Ierardi and followed him as Panthers coach.

"Dick was such an inspiration to all of us," Sparano said. "He was tenacious as a coach. He wanted to win, and he instilled that in us. His life was an example to us. The amazing things that he did and his great competitive spirit is something I took with me. I am blessed to have known him and have him as a mentor."

Former teammate Faraci was Ierardi's oldest friend. "We knew each other since about the fifth grade," said Faraci, himself an All-City star.

Faraci even tipped us off to another Ierardi talent: "He could cook, you know."

The surviving members of the '53 Wildcats gather every year for a reunion dinner. Often, they meet at the Lakewood Social Club, where Ierardi was a member and officer. "And he would cook the meals," Faraci said.

"We were at Walsh Grammar School together, and we won the city basketball championship in 1949," Faraci recalled. "Dick was the leading scorer, and I remember John McKenna refereed the championship game. On that Wilby team, Dick was the glue. He was the first man off the bench, and when he came on the floor, we lost nothing.

"I like to think of Dick as a fighter," Faraci said.

The1953 Wildcats will come together again today, but this time for a funeral. They will say goodbye to a star athlete, a coach, an educator, an administrator, a Hall of Famer, a friend and a city legend, Dick Ierardi.

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